


unabridged and overwhelmed

by thefigureinthecorner



Series: college blues (and yellows and greens) [1]
Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Blood, Depression, Gen, Hospitals, Near Death Experiences, Self-Harm, ao3 will not let me capitalize his parents' names in the tags and i'm sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22188256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefigureinthecorner/pseuds/thefigureinthecorner
Summary: Being alone for the first time removes mental health safety nets you don’t realize you had.Adam learns this the hard way.
Series: college blues (and yellows and greens) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1597228
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	unabridged and overwhelmed

**Author's Note:**

> title is from “three” by sleeping at last
> 
> I already gave Caleb some college angst, why not throw Adam on the college angst pile
> 
> I’m only a little sorry

Adam fucked up.

Small cuts. They were supposed to be small cuts. Just-- just a tiny bit of _something_ to push him through this week, because it’s just his luck that finals week is lining up with one of the worst weeks he’s had in a long time, and his roommate’s in class for the next hour, and it’s not like his parents or Caleb are around here to care, so he’s not hurting anyone but himself now. _Small cuts._ Not this. Not the giant gash on his thigh. There’s blood everywhere and this isn’t something he can bandage up on his own and he almost wishes that maybe his parents _were_ around to worry this time, because he has absolutely no clue what to do.

And then his breathing picks up. He feels lightheaded, and it’s either panic or blood loss or something else entirely, but he’s lightheaded in a way that he recognizes. It’s just like that one time, that one summer, years back, right before sophomore year.

Pressing wads and wads of paper towels to the cut, yelling for his parents because the fear of _bleeding out_ is winning out against the fear of them finding out how broken he is, being young and terrified and not knowing what to do and feeling like he’s about to pass out, maybe, because there is-- so much blood. His parents had run into the room and started fretting over him and his dad had carried him to the car and his mom kept pressure on the wound on the ride over and he’d never seen them look so scared or worried in his life. Except this isn’t going to be like last time, because he doesn’t have them. And he’d been excited for the freedom and independence of being on his own, before moving out, but he hadn’t thought about what that would _mean_ until today, when he looked at his razors and realized.

There’s nobody around to stop him.

Which, he understands now, means there’s _also_ nobody around to _help_ him.

Is he hyperventilating?

He might be hyperventilating.

Fuck, he’s gonna pass out.

He flops over on his mattress, pressing his face into his pillow and trying to breathe and also trying, simultaneously, to not let up pressure on the wound. Maybe— maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe he won’t have to go to the hospital again. Just keep putting pressure on it, butterfly stitch it up, wrap it in gauze, and wear sweatpants for a week or two so it’s nice and comfortable. Or, y’know. As comfortable as something like this can be.

But realistically he knows that’s not an option here. There’s a list of guidelines for when to get medical help for a cut, a list his parents drilled into him from a young age so that he’d know if it was something serious. He’s pretty sure he ticks off at least two of them.

“Fuck,” he swears into the empty room. He’s lying to himself, he knows he is, but what choice does he have? His phone is just out of reach, he’d have to walk over to it to get it, but he can’t even sit up right now, much less stand, and anyway, if he was in the hospital, his parents would find out, and they’d know he wasn’t as recovered as they thought, and they wouldn’t want him out of their sight, and he’d have to drop out of school or something, and even if that _didn’t_ happen wouldn’t the hospital force him into rehab? Isn’t that a thing that happens? So he’d fall behind and miss all his finals and still have to drop out and then he’d lose his shot at going to his dream school and his spot will go to some kid who’s better at handling things. Because _that’s_ definitely how admissions works.

If he were home, it’d be okay. Really, this wouldn’t have happened in the first place if he were home, but this, right here, this situation he’s in, would all be okay. He’d call his parents and they’d worry and it’d suck to go back to how things were After, but they’d help him.

He’s on his own now.

Completely, totally on his own, until his roommate maybe gets back in a little under an hour, and that’s assuming he doesn’t decide to go out after class this time, cause it’s a Friday night. He has friends, and stuff. Even if he does get back soon though, he doesn’t deserve to be freaked out by Adam bleeding out all over their room, or, if Adam gets out of here, by the blood that’s definitely on Adam’s bedsheets now.

He makes a last-ditch effort to reach his phone. His desk isn’t _that_ far from his bed, maybe…

His hand closes on empty air. All the effort gets him is more pain as he jostles the wound. Some of the tears that have been building up begin to fall in earnest.

Why hadn’t he been thinking? Why hadn’t he realized that maybe, just maybe, things could go horribly wrong again, and this time he’d have nobody? He was clearly thinking well enough to realize he was well and truly alone, why didn’t he realize what that would mean if something like this happened? Why didn’t he just _think?_

Huh. Thinking.

_Hey,_ he sends out, a desperate final attempt. _If there are any mind-readers in this building I’m in 803, kinda bleeding out and kinda dying and kinda terrified, and I can’t reach my phone, and I can’t stand up to go anywhere to get help, please call someone. I know about atypicals, don’t worry about revealing your secret to me._

He’s starting to feel dizzy, even lying down, and he closes his eyes for a couple seconds so the room will stop spinning. He’s being ridiculous, maybe, because what are the chances that anyone in this building can actually read minds? What are the chances they’d be in range of him? But then again, what other option is there? At least reaching out to mind-readers is _trying,_ even if it is a long-shot.

_If you_ can _hear me, I need that help sooner rather than later,_ he adds on.

His hearing is going a little quiet. His breathing doesn’t feel like it’s doing enough. The lightheadedness of blood loss is always a weird feeling.

He hears someone knock on his door.

“Campus security. Everything alright in there?”

Huh. It must’ve worked, then.

“I’m gonna come in, alright?”

He thinks that maybe he gets an answer out and he hears the door open before things finally go dark.

——

He wakes up in the hospital.

Stitches in his leg.

Crying parents next to his bed.

Crying parents hugging him when they realize he’s awake, gently cradling his head and telling him that it’s okay and he’s alright now and he can always call them if it gets like that, and if not them then Caleb, please, Adam, just _tell_ someone next time.

Something clicks.

“If you guys are here, how long was I out?”

His parents share a glance. His mother speaks. “A few hours, is what they told us. You were unconscious when you got here and they had you under general anesthesia for the procedure so you wouldn’t wake up and panic or start moving.”

And then the dreaded conversation— talking about how maybe being alone isn’t the best for him, maybe he can defer for a semester and come back later. How maybe coming back home would be the better option.

“And if this happens again—“

“Which it _won’t,”_ his mother adds on sternly—

“Which it won’t,” his father agrees, “but if it does, you’ll have us. You won’t be alone.”

It all makes perfect sense. Of course he shouldn’t be alone, look at what just happened today. Sure, _maybe_ this incident will scare him out of doing anything, but maybe it’ll just teach him to be smarter. Keep his phone on the bed next to him instead of on his desk out of arm’s reach. And he’s going to fall impossibly behind in classes because of this; he’d needed a blood transfusion, apparently, so he’ll be here for a while, and that’s not counting the rehab his parents and the hospital staff want him to do.

It _makes sense._

It’s all exactly what he was afraid of.


End file.
